“But you aren’t his parents. What sort of insane lawyer gave you that advice?” I demanded.
“None of your business,” Les said, smiling nastily.
I stared at my father-in-law, wondering how he’d managed to keep this level of petulant rudeness under wraps for so many years. Sure, he’d been a condescending mansplainer, but he’d generally been the “nice to your face, but ask other people to ‘redirect’ you when you weren’t around” type since Rob and I started dating. Marge cleared her throat, her dark, almost starched curls bouncing as she leaned across the table.
“Look, I don’t see any reason why we can’t all be reasonable here,” she said, her tone wheedling. “We all want the same things. We all want Danny to have a happy, normal childhood.”
“Everybody needs to stop emphasizing the word ‘normal,’ ” I told them. “There is no normal anymore; there hasn’t been since vampires became our neighbors instead of myth. This is the new normal. And y’all need to deal with it.”
I cleared my throat. I was losing myself, reverting back to my old accent as I grew more upset. I needed to calm down. If I lost control in this session, it would be one more justification for Danny to be removed from his home.
“We just need to work together to find a compromise,” Marge continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Libby doesn’t want to disappoint us, I’m sure. You want us to have a cordial relationship, don’t you?”
How did Marge manage that sweet tone, considering her nightgowned hissy fit outside my home just days before? Were we pretending that had never happened? Because I didn’t know if I could do that. And I certainly noticed her not-terribly-subtle implication that we could only have a cordial relationship if I was willing to bend to their wishes.
“We just have to work out a schedule. You’ll get Halloween with Danny. I’m sure your people love Halloween. And we’ll take Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can just sleep in those nights.”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t I want Danny to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with me?”
Marge tittered nervously, looking to Les for validation, but all he did was roll his eyes and stare at the ceiling. “Well, you wouldn’t want Danny to miss out on spending the holidays with his relatives on my side. Besides, it would be an awfully small celebration if it was just you and Danny. Family has never been as important to you as it is to most people,” Marge said. “And besides, it’s not like you’re going to eat anyway.”
Ouch. I mean, she wasn’t wrong about the eating thing, but ouch.
It wasn’t unusual for my in-laws to cite my limited genealogical tree. I’d never been allowed to forget that I’d married into an expansive, storied McClure County family. But they normally did it in a far more passive-aggressive, less “steal your child like something out of a Grimm tale” manner.
The aforementioned very late Miss Dwyer finally arrived and did her best, going around and around with us on suggesting pickup schedules and potential weekends. But Les and Marge—or at least Les—wouldn’t have it. He insisted that there would be no visitation schedule. They wanted total custody or nothing.
After Les refused yet another carefully constructed suggestion from Miss Dwyer, I will admit that I lost my temper a little. If “a little” meant snapping a fancy fountain pen in half with my thumb and splattering black ink all over the carpet. I took a deep breath and resisted the urge to wipe my smudged hands against my khakis.
“Les and Marge, you need to understand that if and when you see Danny, it will be on my terms. If we can’t come to some sort of resolution, you may not be able to see him at all.” I knew I was using my “explaining to Danny why playing with matches is wrong” voice, but I didn’t care. They’d lured me to mediation under false pretenses. They had it coming.
While Marge was downright unsettled by this statement, Les didn’t even twitch. “We’re not worried about that,” he said, his gray mustache bristling as he smirked.
I hid my stained hand under the table and very carefully asked through my clenched fangs, “If you didn’t plan on cooperating, why did you bother coming to mediation at all? You were the ones to call the Council office and request this meeting in the first place.”
Les shrugged. “Our lawyer said that this was the best way to show that we were trying to be reasonable.”
If and when I found out who was representing my in-laws in this farce, that attorney might just be my first human chew toy.